Veteran Benefits: Outside Opportunities for Marines

By Craig Collins - January 3, 2013

Marines with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit and sailors aboard USS Pearl Harbor stand in formation in San Diego, Calif., Dec. 7, 2011, during a 70th anniversary commemoration ceremony of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Many benefits are available to Marines separating from the Corps, but too few currently take advantage of them. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Tommy Huynh

A number of online job boards and search engines are designed specifically for service members and veterans, but not all are reputable; it’s best to consult the ones vetted by eBenefits or other government portals. Several of these are powerful search engines that match job opportunities to a service member’s work experience, including:

My Next Move (www.mynextmove.org/vets/), a joint VA/DOL creation;
The government’s National Resource Directory, a military/veteran support portal, operates the Veterans Job Bank (www.nationalresourcedirectory.gov/home/veterans_job_bank), which allows veterans to search opportunities by keyword, MOS/MOC, and location;
Military.com’s Veteran Employment Center (www.military.com/veteran-jobs);
www.HireAHero.org; and
Transition Assistance Online (www.TAOnline.com), an e-recruiting site founded by former military personnel.

An Alexandria, Va. Police Department representative describes the benefits of working for their police force to two Marines aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C., during the bi-annual Job Fair and Education Exposition Sept. 19, 2012. Many different employers were present at the event, with police departments being the most prevalent. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Scott W. Whiting

Many service members find they’re already well-adapted for civilian work in the federal government, and several programs recruit military candidates. Unsurprisingly, both the Department of Defense (DoD) (www.militaryconnection.com) and the VA (www.vaforvets.va.gov) recruit heavily from among former service members, but the federal government extends preferences to veterans in federal hiring (www.fedshirevets.gov) throughout the executive branch and independent agencies. The White House’s Office of Personnel Management maintains a complete listing of available federal jobs at www.usajobs.gov.

Job boards and resources are too numerous to detail here, but additional resources include RecruitMilitary.com, helmetstohardhats.org, the VFW’s VetJobs.com, MilitaryHire.com, veteransgreenjobs.org, and The Riley Guide (rileyguide.com/vets.html).

For service members who are considering the launch of a small business, two key resources are the National Resource Directory and the VA’s Center for Veterans Enterprise(CVE), which is dedicated solely to assisting veterans in starting and building businesses. The center maintains a portal for veteran-owned businesses, www.vetbiz.gov.

Education

Statistics from the labor market reveal a strong link between employment and a person’s level of education; according to Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), the 2011 unemployment rate of Gulf War II-era veterans with a high school diploma was 16.4 percent, compared to 6.4 percent for veterans with any college-level education.